Arizona COVID deaths up, cases and hospitalizations down in latest report
Mar 16, 2022, 11:45 AM
PHOENIX – COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to fall in Arizona, but deaths from the virus rose by 20% in the latest weekly report.
Wednesday’s update of the Arizona Department of Health Services COVID-19 dashboard showed 457 new deaths, putting the state’s documented total at 28,547 fatalities.
It was the largest batch of new deaths in the three reports issued since ADHS shifted from daily to weekly updates earlier this month. Last week’s report had 382 new deaths.
Other key metrics in the latest update, however, indicate that the coronavirus is in full retreat in Arizona.
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Wednesday’s report of 5,153 new cases, about 736 per day, was 21% smaller than last week’s update. The state’s documented case total increased to 1,992,471.
Arizona’s weekly percent positivity for diagnostic COVID testing was down to 3%, the lowest mark in the two years since the pandemic started.
COVID inpatient and ICU hospitalizations each dropped to their lowest levels since the first week of July 2021.
The dashboard showed an average of 663 inpatients per day with COVID for the latest week, down 18% from the previous week’s report. The COVID ICU average was 159, down 21%.
The weekly report format includes lags of four weeks for deaths and two weeks for hospitalizations so the data can be more complete before being released.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week that three of Arizona’s 15 counties — Yuma, La Paz and Mohave — were in the high risk category for COVID-19. The CDC updates its county COVID levels every Thursday.
More than 98% of the U.S. population was living in areas with low or medium COVID levels in the latest CDC report.
Globally, COVID deaths fell by 17% in the last week while cases went up by 8%, according to the World Health Organization.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
